peaceful protests. they're planned for later this afternoon on both coasts. demonstrators plan to gather in bridgeport, connecticut, new york, and out west in l.a. the leader of the l.a. civil rights association promises the protests will continue throughout this entire summer. the city's mayor and police chief are calling for calm after more than two dozen arrests over the past couple days. vigils have been held in nearly 100 cities since the not guilty verdict in the george zimmerman trial was first read on saturday night. some americans are speaking their minds about the outcome of the trial, and so are some key people involved in it. rachel jeantel, friend of trayvon martin who testified for the prosecution, actually sits down with our own reverend sharpton on tonight's "politics nation." she addresses the contentious cross-examination by the defense. >> trying to get me angry to just show the jury, look at her, she a angry. if she angry, you should imagine

how trayvon is. >> as you sat there, you knew -- and you're saying this by your statement, that you were representing trayvon. in many ways, being the friend that you were to him, they were going to judge trayvon's character by you, which was a real burden that you had to carry that you didn't ask for. >> yes, yes. >> now, meantime, reaction continues to pour in from the first and only full interview with a member of the jury. that was, of course, juror number b-37. she told cnn she believed the actions of zimmerman and martin both contributed to the teen's death. she did not believe zimmerman broke the law. now, that has drawn a response from four other members of the jury who issued a written statement that her views, that original juror, are not representative of theirs. now, all through the trial and now in the days after, each move seems is to have been tracked through television, print, and of course online.

in this age of the endless 24-hour news cycle, which we are a part of, has the media started to play judge and jury? joining us now for that conversation is robert thompson. he directs the center for the study of popular television at syracuse university. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> now, robert, i want to be clear. we've heard only extensively from one of the jurors who was also offered at one point a book deal. others are asking for privacy. by only hearing from participants who might be really incentivized to speak out, do you think we risk not getting a full and accurate picture of what happened in that jury room? >> well, we definitely don't get a full and accurate picture of what happened in the jury room unless we talk to everybody, i guess. but this idea of whether the media are influencing what we think about this case, well, of course they are. i don't know about you, but everything i know about this case i get from the media. newspapers, radio, television, watching the cameras in the courtroom. i have done -- i don't go to the

courtroom myself. i haven't gone to examine court records. so this question of the media suddenly now influencing how we think about this or for that matter anything, the media is how most people know 100% about most of what goes on in there. >> well, let me push back on you a little bit or at least define our terms. there's a trial, which is mediated, when we see raw footage of it. a lot of people know a lot about the trial from watching the trial. that is to say, they've seen hours of the trial itself. i would distinguish that from you and i as commentators talking about it. so there is a primary source material here. i mean, this is not just listening to, say, sports radio. people have seen part of the game, and the question i'm trying to get at, i think, is beyond the game itself, beyond the actual primary source material, are the rest of us sort of distorting some of it with the way we're covering it? i mean, that's, i think, an issue here. >> yeah, well, i think some people are. it depends who you listen to. you're right. there's the primary source of the actual trial, which i think

is a very interesting thing for people to be able to see. then there are the people who are reporting on the trial, the actual old-school news reporting. then there are people commenting on it. then there are just, you know, people shouting out opinions and so forth. depending on who you listen to, depending on what times you're listening, obviously these things are going to be impacting a lot of the audience. you know, there's some -- there's been some terrible reporting and conversation about this. there's been a lot of really good, insightful conversation as well. there's just so much of it. the big difference between now and a generation ago is the quantity. it's really, really hard to sift through and do due diligence without some real skills. >> you know, of course, that's correct. i'm glad to have you on the show. you're one of the people who have been doing this work, looking at the media in a very careful way for several decades.

i always get uncomfortable when we talk about the media because it is such a large beast, not just television, but also print and the internet. it functions in many, many different ways. there have been very productive conversation about the zimmerman trial and very unproductive conversations. but you have watched the media move from an overtly objective medium to what we have now, which in many cases is an opinion-driven immediamedium. in zimmerman, which has been this very polarizing situation, which has led to days of protests in the street afterward, has the opinion media helped or played a corrosive role in the american conversation? has the analysis been helpful in letting americans process this, or has it driven us further into our polarized tribes? >> well, i mean, i guess that's a good question. it's one that no matter how we answer it, it's not like it's going to change. we've now got access to all of this -- all of these various

venues for media like we never did before. i mean, one could argue that in some ways the very fact that the media is not just now -- when there were three networks, everybody was forced to a kind of center, that there was no other choice than to occupy. when walter cronkite was still having the nerve to end his broadcasts, and that's the way it is, now, of course, one can take what one already thinks about a lot of these things and have that supported further by finding the places who are saying things that agree with you. does all of this media make us a more contentious population? very likely it does, but nobody ever said that the free and open access to information was going to be pretty. there's a lot of information out there. a little bit of it which is good and insightful and intelligent. then there's a lot of stuff that's just noise and corrosive and all the rest of it. but if we want that one kind of

information, we have to let that other kind get in as well. >> you know, robert, one of the things that's kind of interesting to me, a trend in general, sort of the political -- how media is -- media lines are fractured politically. you know, you have people sort of seek out their own news sources based on their own political ideology, their own political views. it really jumped out at me at the beginning of this whole saga when george zimmerman gave an interview to sean hannity and fox news. watch this trial and watching this story sort of merge with political news media today, it seemed to meet our political divide. >> right. i mean, i think, yes, we do see that. although, i'm still convinced that an awful lot of people went into this trial, before they knew very much except for the first couple days where we just had bits and pieces of information, i think there are an awful lot of people for all of the additional material and

testimony and data and all of the rest of it that have happened over the past months, i think an awful lot of people are probably pretty much in the same place they were when all of this stuff first happened. i don't know exactly what that means, but i do know there has been a lot of -- i have no problem with this having had gavel-to-gavel coverage. i think watching that trial was a very useful thing to do, not only to get into the some of these issues that are central to life in the 21st century in this country, but also to get into some of the problems of how it is we ask questions about those things. i mean, so much time was, you know, was this attack racially motivated? well, sometimes there's a really obvious answer. sometimes things are racially motivated that the people who are racially motivated have no idea they are. it's hard to get -- it's very hard to answer some of those questions. sometimes i think maybe not so

useful to be asking those questions as opposed to some other really important ones. >> i think we wouldn't be here talking about this trial at all if not had the media picked up on the grassroots protest that led to florida feeling pressure to actually bring charges here. but let's look forward. will this be a lasting symbol? we continue to talk about the o.j. simpson trial as one of those moments in america where we had to talk about race in a big way. we talk about the whole rodney king situation. of course, the importance of television and viral videos there. is this trayvon martin moment that we all lived through together going to be one that we continue to talk about for decades as a marker of where we are at this point in history? >> well, i think it will be -- yes, it's a marker of 2012. i mean, o.j. was at a certain point. rodney king trial at another place. i mean, i think this does become one of those signs on the road. i'm not sure if we look back at

all these things whether we can see this road being one that's, you know, the straight and narrow that's going forward. there are a lot of real complexities about this case and a lot of complexities about how it was covered that doesn't, you know, make one think, oh, just look how far we've gone since o.j. i'm not sure we've gone that far. >> definitely. >> all right, robert thompson. thanks for spending time with us. >> thank you. >> and tonight don't miss reverend al's interview with rachel jeantel on msnbc. up next, turning up the heat on russia over snowden. one senator is suggesting the u.s. should consider boycotting the 2014 olympics all over that issue. now, i don't know. ice and snow sounds pretty good with the heat in new york. we're going to spin on that. the heat, the international heat, all up ahead. asional constipation,

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news trickles out that nsa leaker edward snowden has temporarily applied for asylum in rush sharks senator lindsey graham is offering a level-headed solution. >> i don't know if putting the olympics on the table is the right answer, but i do know this, what we're doing is not working. >> wait, wait. what's that? only twice in the last 85 years has the u.s. seriously considered boycotting the olympics. there was in 1980, of course,

when jimmy carter led a boycott because of the soviet invasion of afghanistan. there was 1936 when america ultimately decided to go ahead and attend. those were hitler's olympics in berlin. surely, lindsay graham isn't raising the specter of nazi germany. >> something like the olympics is not supposed to be political. it's supposed to be the world coming together. >> right. >> why do you think that this issue is big enough to perhaps threaten the olympics? >> if you could go back in time, would you have allowed adolph hitler to host the olympics in germany? >> well, destroying a lifetime of work for hundreds of u.s. athletes, it must just be one of those things that has a lot of support on the hill and we don't know about it yet. >> listen, i love senator graham. we've been close friends for 20 years, but i think he's dead wrong. listen, why would we want to punish u.s. athletes who have been training for three years to compete in the olympics over a

traitor who can't find a place to call home? >> ladies and gentlemen, that's john boehner there getting the gold medal for being the voice of reason. >> what? >> let's spin on this. you know, look, i think we could probably stipulate up front there is not going to be a boycott, a u.s. boycott of the 2014 winter olympic games. >> that's correct. >> i'm a little confused. i mean, lindsey graham has some showman's instincts when it comes to politics. he has a reason for doing things. usually his reason for making outlandish statements is he's protecting himself from a republican primary challenge. i don't know how this would fit into that. i think back to the 1980 u.s. boycott of the olympics. then you had the soviets in 1984 staying away from l.a. remember the u.s. winning the gold medal in basketball that year. it didn't feel like a real gold medal. >> yet we would crush them anyway. >> but also think that gave rise

to -- remember this thing called the goodwill games? because they couldn't get together, we had the goodwill games. we had a whole fake, bastardized olympics. i never liked the idea of the 1980 boycott. it gave rise to the '84 boycott. at the height of the cold war, it would have been great. it's so weird right now. we still have issues with russia, but we're not in the cold war anymore. to be talking about a boycott, it just seemed to dated. >> we're sure not in that cold war mentality graham is talking about. i believe we can invoke godwin's law on lindsey graham. if you compare anything to hitler and the nazis, you immediately lose the argument. >> that is an internet thing. >> that is an internet thing. i find it overall poetic, perhaps tragically poetic, that edward snowden -- that the intelligence community was created to help us keep pace with russia or stay ahead of russia in the cold war. now edward snowden is trying to change the intelligence community and ends up running to russia for asylum.

but look, on balance, compared to that period, compared to 1980 and that period, russia is a much better global citizen now than they were then, dealing with us in term of nuclear nonproliferation, sanctions against iran and north korea. going backwards in terms of our relationship and the olympics would be a horribly bad choice in terms of global politics going forward. you know what? if the shoe was on the other foot, if a russian intelligence agent ran to america, we would completely take care of that person, and they know it and we know it. so obviously we're not going to be messing with russia. he's probably going to end up living in russia and we're just going to swallow it and deal with it. >> i think lindsey graham is inviting us to talk about hitler, and i decline the invitation. i think he's inviting us to focus specifically and obsessively on edward snowden. i decline the invitation. however, i will talk about lindsey graham. as kornacki was saying, this is

what this guy does. the biggest problem for me is that he knows better. he was a judge advocate general in the military, served his country with distinction as a trained attorney. he knows this is how international asylum and treaties work. he also knew that any time we capture someone in america, they should get their rights and get put into the court system. he was the first guy out the gate in what i would think is a very similar kind of made up standoff where he said, oh, the president should treat tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, even though he knew all the rules and knew that was impossible and illegal. he just said it. to steve's point, he may say this because it plays well back home, but it's irresponsible as a leader and senator. it really goes to a question of whether lindsey graham should be granted this special status that he's some sort of thinking moderate when he says things he knows to be untrue. there won't be a boycott. we should worry more about the surveillance state he's helped to reveal. >> he just lost the

all-important luge vote in south carolina. watch out. up next, no nuclear meltdown in the senate, but don't start celebrating just yet. >> jason, the filibuster has been preserved for now. so it seems we won't see the predicted decent into gridlock and chaos then. >> gridlock and chaos. how would that be worse than the current situation? the senate dreams of the day things improf to a state of gridlock and chaos. >> is it really that bad there? >> john, john -- do you know what all this stuff is? these are senate bills waiting to come up to the floor for a vote. look how old they are. look at this thing here. the fair slave pricing act of 1852. >> wow, that's old. >> look at this one here. look at this. ban this new jazz craze bill. >> okay, okay. >> look at this. a bill to grant the congressional medal of all-around great guy to o.j. [ bleep ] simpson! ♪ don't you

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back now in the news cycle, it's a steamy 94 degrees right now in new york. thankfully, it is a little cooler here inside the studio. we're not the only ones experiencing the dog days did of summer. in fact, some two-thirds of the country is baking under excessive heat. for many of us, there are several more days of this in store. one of the toughest places to be as the temperature goes up is down in the subways. the hardy new yorkers we are, we find creative ways to handle the heat as wnbc found out for us today. >> reporter: after sweating up the stairs at the smith and 9th street station, commuters were left with little relief with intense heat baking half of the open-air platform. commuters endured their wait with a bit of shade and a new design. >> i get a breeze, which is why i'm standing by the window. huge difference.

a 20-degree difference between here and the other stations. >> the hot weather didn't affect the coolest moment in baseball this year at the all-star game here in new york. as he entered the game in the eighth inning, retiring yankee reliever mariano rivera was left alone on the mound as players from both teams lined up at the dugouts. the greatest closer in baseball got a one-minute standing ovation from the crowd of 45,000, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. after the ovation, rivera retired the national league in order. after the game, he was named mvp, the first reliever to ever get that award. he will retire at the season's end. "iron" has been known for ironically not being very ironic. even the singer herself has admitted the example. she sings about how they're not technically ironic.

another singer now has put an end to this long-national nightmare by writing it's finally ironic. take a listen. ♪ it's a death row pardon that causes your demise ♪ ♪ because you leave the jail and get hit by a bus ♪ ♪ and that really is ironic ♪ we fixed it for you, alanis ♪ it's like rain on your wedding day ♪ ♪ a day and place you chose because it's known not to rain ♪ ♪ it's a free ride -- >> english teachers everywhere can breathe a little easier today. that means we can move on to some other news. you may have heard this. two years after he was nominated by president obama, ohio's former attorney general richard cordray has been confirmed to run the consumer financial protection agency. the president acknowledged that the confirmation was a long-time coming. >> last year i took steps on my

own to temporarily appoint richard so he could get to work on their behalf. americans. everywhere are better off because he did. and i would argue that part of the reason we were able to finally get rich confirmed today is because he's shown through his leadership and because the very hard work that everybody at the cfpb has already done that this is making a difference in it the lives of the american people. a positive difference. >> that may be, but of course cordray's confirmation along with four others would not have happened if 98 senators didn't enter this place on monday. yes, that is the old senate chamber where cameras and the media are not allowed. jimmy williams has argued in the past that the senate is one area where a little less trns parn si could be helpful. he was a senior adviser to dick durbin. also with us today is the president of america's united for change, brad woodhouse, who says is the compromise on nominations actually shows we

need bigger filibuster reform. jimmy, straight to you. unpack what happened with those 98 senators in the room and why it matters. >> well, a, cameras weren't on. b, they had to sit down and talk to each other as opposed to at each other. remarkable how that works out. the last time they did this was during impeachment. what happened? the house on a party line vote for the most part impeached bill clinton. it went to the senate. they sat down in the old chamber and what happened? ted kennedy and others sat down and said, you know, guys, we got to save the country. we can't do this. fast forward to 2013, exactly the same thing happened. those men and those women sat in that chamber. here's the interesting thing, though, about what happened to that chamber. the majority of those democrats, which are in the majority in the senate right now, never have been in the minority. they don't have a clue what it's like to have less staff, less money for your budget, less office space, et cetera, et

cetera. i think to a large degree with john mccain and chuck schumer and others' help, they walked over the brink, they looked over the edge, they didn't like what they saw and all pushed back. that's why we got a deal. >> brad, and then jimmy, i want to get you to respond to my idea. i believe there should not be substantive filibuster reform. i rest that on something a wise man once told me. the senate, quote, is where legislation goes to cool down and get better. jim m jimmy williams told me that. >> that's a george washington quote. >> i think what you were talking about there, jimmy, is in the senate, part of what makes such a great body is the filibuster. the majority must listen to the minority. the house is where the majority rules. the senate has to be different. because the minority can have that power, it makes the senate a much more powerful body balanced out with the house.

what do you think about that? >> well, look, i think there's something to be said for that. i think we also remember the senate will never be the house. these people run statewide. they have to take bigger issues and more diverse constituencies into account. 51 votes is not any easy thing to get in the senate irrespective of the filibuster. the issue i think here is if the filibuster had been used the past ten years the way it's been used the previous 100, i don't think anybody would be asking for reform. but it hasn't been. it's gone too far. i mean, i think that statistic reid quoted was just incredible. over 400 filibusters he's dealt with in four years. lyndon johnson dealing with just one. you can't have that. so some type of reform. one way or the other, things need to be able to move with

minority say but not with complete obstruction on behalf of the minority. >> of course the republicans are currently abusing it, but eventually they'll be in it the majority. do you want a forum that gives them that much more power when they're in the majority in the future? >> well, that's the problem with what was about to happen. listen, i was certainly sympathetic to the theory of cramming it down the republicans' throat on this one. but that's short term. long term it's a bad, bad idea. and the reason being is because at the end of the day, when you're going to be in the minority in the chamber, all you have to do is stand up and say i object. now, you can do that over and over and over again. it doesn't endear you very well to other members of the senate and their staffs. so the democrats have to step into the republicans' shoes. also, yes, in fact, the republicans have unprecedented amounts of filibusters. never before in the history of the united states of america has two cabinet appointees been filibustered. last congress 115 filibusters by the republicans.

congress before that, 137. congress before that, 139. the congress before that, that was when the republicans were in the majority, and it was 89. that's the vast difference here. the numbers jumped so drastically. that's why i think you've found the senate moving where they were and stepping back. >> you know, brad, i guess i kind of disagree with the way the news this week has been framed about this. we're talking about how, you know, wow, the senate came close and they all took a look and said we're not going to do that. i feel like they didn't formally change the rules on filibusters this week, but functionally they did. it's now -- they sort of established that you cannot -- a norm of the senate cannot be sort of a broad obstruction, broad blockade of executive branch nominees. if republicans go back, if they revert to that in the next six months, in the next year, democrats made it perfectly clear this week they will take the nuclear option. i think we have every reasonable expectation that if republicans become the majority party and democrats act the way republicans have the last few years, republicans will take

that step. they did sort of without changing the rules did change the rules this week, i feel. >> well, i think that's exactly right. look, i'm all for 98 or 100 senators going into the old senate chamber and meeting. i think that's all great. what got this done was reid had 51 votes. he had 51 votes to change the rules. he held that over the republicans' head. jeff flake was asked, what do we get out of this as republicans? he said, well, we get to live to fight another day. i think republicans are on probation. it's not double secret probation. if they do this again, democrats are emboldened. the base is semiboldenemboldene you know what, let's get 51 vote, let's threaten nuclear action again. i think the republicans take over, they do the nuclear option on day one. they're not shy about stuffing stuff down the democrats' throats. >> they're not shy, and they probably won't get stuck calling it the nuclear option. they'll say it's the democracy

option or the majority option. thank you, both, for sharing your experience with us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> up next, making a deal with the devil, and we're not talking about anymore washington politics. the latest chilling testimony in the whitey bulgar case. it starts with little things. tiny changes in the brain. little things anyone can do. it steals your memories. your independence. ensures support, a breakthrough. and sooner than you'd like. sooner than you'd think. you die from alzheimer's disease. we cure alzheimer's disease.

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whitey bulger. it's a trial about extortion, assassinations, and on tuesday we heard about a machine gun jam between a witness's legs as he was told to pay up or die. all while whitey was said to be protected by the authorities. wait, how do the good guys end up in bed with the bad guys? drawing on 1,153 pages of newly uncovered secret memos, our next guest tells the true story of a different deal with the devil while fbi special agent lindley devevvhio was putting together the bust of the '80s, he was also working with his informant gregory scarpa sr. to he could carry out more than 26 murders. joining us in the guest spot, acclaimed investigative

journalist peter lance. peter, welcome. 40 years as a mafioso. 30 days in jail. 26 murders, either executed, ordered or committed. and $1 million in fees or rewards from the fbi. this is an extraordinary story you've got here. >> well, toure, this is the whitey bulger story on steroids. he was by far the most vicious, violent killer in the history. he actually confessed to his killing partner the '90s he'd stop counting after 50 murders, which makes him one of the top serial killers of all time. yet, while three separate justice department strike forces, chicago, brooklyn, newark, were endeavoring good people in our justice department to put him away, the fbi was just secretly back dooring and keeping him on the street. only did 30 days in jail in 30-plus years, 40 years of

murder and mayhem. his memos went right to every fbi director. his debriefing memos. on my website, peterlance.com, i have one in the upper left-hand corner. a memo from 1962 where he gave the entire mafia playbook a year and a half. >> so they're just only two in the situation where we have many people like this, people who are ongoing criminals who are being paid by law enforcement, either the fbi or local law enforcement, to be snitches, and they are able to use law enforcement to play them like a fiddle, to eliminate enemies, and be shielded from prosecution or arrest. this is one of the key questions of your book, who gets the most out of these deals, the law enforcement or the criminals? quite often, sir, it is the criminals. >> in this case it was absolutely scarpa sr., who was a brilliant strategist. if this guy had gone straight,

he would have been the ceo of a major corporation. he literally played the control agents around him, the fbi brass in washington, the -- and he walked the edge of a razor blade. if any of the wise guys in the colombo family thought he was a rat, he would have been murdered. he used fbi intelligence to knock off everybody above him, including the boss of the family. he waged the third colombo war from 1991 to '92 before he was arrested. he was the principle senate gist in a war that are killed 14 people, including two sent in bystanders. he took six lives personally himself. he was on house arrest. he's diagnose of a.i.d.s. he's got a t-cell count of two. he's in his house and his son joey says some local drug dealers just dissed me. he grabs two guns. he kills a guy. one of them shoots a guy in his car. he gets his eye shot out, and he

drives to the curb, walks home, drinks a scotch, and is driven to the hospital. >> what a guy. >> wow. what a story. peter, to talk about whitey bulger for a second, because i was in high school the day the news came across the radio. we were coming home, he was on the lam. it wasn't until 16 1/2 years later, like june 2011, that was he was actually caught. the talk all those years as the details of his relationship with the fbi came out was that the fbi really maybe wasn't trying that hard to catch him. maybe they were happier just to kind of let him go. do you think there's anything to that? >> well, look, there's a huge difference between bulger, which the bureau is vigorously prosecute -- or the justice department is vigorously prosecuting. the contacting agent has been convicted twice. he's doing life. currently the justice department is trying to put whitey away. the most you could say the

consequence of the bureau is embarrassment that this lasted so long. but scarpa's contacting agent was convicted of murder. basically, the trial ended abruptly. the justice department not only paid part of the legal fee, they had two lawyers like hawks watching the fbi agents under him who had sort of ratted him out that led to the -- an opr investigation. when they had this internal affairs investigation, he was allowed to refuse a polygraph and the justice department granted him immunity. why? because scarpa sr. provided is most of the probable cause of the title three wiretaps in the mafia commission case, which made rudy giuliani's future. propelled him into gracie mansion with his eyes on the white house. the cases would have unravelled

are. so the stakes in new york were much, much higher for the justice department than in boston. >> wow. peter, a final question here with a little time. what do we draw as the lessons here? obviously, you need informants like you knee spie -- need spie. yet people walk away from this reporting thinking how do we get in so deep on the law enforcement side with criminals. >> here's the big take aiway. i've done three books prior to this on counterterrorism failures. the bureau was so obsessed forever bothering italians. the number one priority of the new york office was to get john gotti. they took their eye off this me it's a sizing cell. that cell executed the 9/11 plot. finally the southern district superseded the indictment. where was the bureau all those years? forever bothering italians. obsessed with the mafia when the

equities were so unbalanced. >> peter, fascinating stuff. fascinating book. congratulations on that. thank you for being here. up next, hot off the presses, a big announcement about the future of "the cycle." in cities like charlotte,ing. atlanta, and chicago, we're revving people up to take a lap around the legendary nascar race track with drivers from the coca-cola racing family.

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krystal ball groupies, she'll be back with us on july 29th, the day her maternity leave ends. she gave birth to a boy, lowell, who is beautiful. we're glad to have krystal back as part of our family. speaking of joining a family, our newest cyclist will be abby huntsman. this is how she announced it just under a two hours ago. >> i am leaving. you heard it here first. i am joining msnbc's "the cycle." you know, it's this next chapter of my life i'm very much looking forward to. >> this basically means you're leaving me for toure. >> no, we'll have a long-distance relationship. this is the next chapter of my life. i'm excited to join the team. i'm excited to bring a dose of moderate, rational conservatism to "the cycle." i think that's needed today.

>> wait, what was that last bit? all right. we're going to have to talk about that. but in addition to huff post live, she's been a familiar face as guests both on for abcnous. she is a journalist who first burst on the scene in 2012 as a media advisor for her father jon huntsman as he was running for the presidential nomination. she has already befriended crystal. it's only a matter of days before i ari and i come between the two. but we are thrilled to have abby. she's a friend of all three of us. we all respect her and we're happy to have her as part of the gang. but she's not here, and -- >> are you sure? >> the arrival, the mention of a new person makes me think about ari who continually reminds us that he is newish or freshman or whatever. it doesn't matter. you're part of the group now. but you know, i want to do a

little bit of an entrance interview now that you've been here for a minute. >> this is what happens when we don't have abby yet. >> yeah, we're going to tap dance to you till we have abby to talk to her. you changed careers to be here. you made a very conscious decision to leave your legal practice, which was very serious to you to be part of this. and i think the way you do your thing makes it clear you have a sort of media project or a mission, something that you want to get out into the world which is why you're here. talk a little bit about your media mission. >> yeah, i'm so excited to be at msnbc and be a part of the "cycle," the excitement is great. what i like to do and what's different from practicing law where you're slow, you can work on a case that takes years, here every day we focus on things and try to make an argument to anyone watching what's important. you know, we've been covering voting rights more lately, looking at the voting rights act

why we still need it to make sure democracy works and we can push that story out there. we have to make it work. you have to keep the audience. i love getting up and doing that every day. one thing i learned when i joined "the cycle," i joined a show covering military sexual assault as a big editorial project. could you go into other outlets where people would say that's sad or boring or what's thenous hook. it was clear immediately that you and crystal and the team here had decided that was something you wanted to cover. those kind of editorial decisions is why this is such an exciting business of journalism. >> we have a chance to perhaps change or shape hearts and minds here. i think that's what we're trying to do sort of fight for justice in our own way. steve karn knack can i, you're still doing your weekend show. >> come to this building every day with one overriding goal, meet al roker and get an autograph. hasn't happened yet. >> you're an idiot. >> i know when i joined the show i added a lot of street credit.

>> it's a -- >> i know that was an issue for you. you've been very gracious about it. very gracious. >> okay. up next, he's just mentioned more of ari's angle on the future of voting rights in america. i would say my car. probably the car. cause as you get older you start breaking down. i love my car. i want to take care of it. i have a bad wheel - i must say. my car is running quite well. keep your car healthy with the works. $29.95 or less after $10 mail-in rebate at your participating ford dealer. so you gotta take care of yourself? yes you do. you gotta take care of your baby? oh yeah! accomplishing even little things can become major victories. i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. when i was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, my rheumatologist prescribed enbrel for my pain and stiffness, and to help stop joint damage. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events

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and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? when the supreme court struck down a key part of the voting rights act last month, many said there was no hope for revibing the historic civil rights law because congress won't act. national journal simply announced congress would do nothing. supreme court expert tom goldstein told nbc the decision was probably a death knell because of congressional inaction. today just three weeks after the ruling, the senate is the acting. this afternoon, there was

testimony from a democrat who the risked his life marching for voting rights and a senior republican who called the vra one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation ever passed. >> congress is now presented with a challenge and a historic opportunity. we are again called together to restore the critical protections of the act by designing a new formula that will cover jurisdictions with recent and egregious vote records. >> today the supreme court decision broke my heart. it made me want to cry. to this day i truly believe we're a better country, a better people because of the voting rights act. >> now, this is important what the senate is doing today is exactly what the supreme court said it can do to renew the voting rights act. the court ruled that the law's formula was out of date but congress may draft another formula based on current conditions. congress can update the data used to decide where elections

decisions should occur and update the definitions what barriers have a disparate impact on voting today and it can create a national trigger to figure out where advanced supervision should function under section 5 of the law. so that discrimination in the north is targeted just as rigorously as in the south. but even as congress beats back the cynic who's say nothing will happen, there's another threat to reform. many people argue even if congress does act, the supreme court will just overrule it again and say john roberts wrote his decision just to blame congress but he'll crush this law one way or another. look, i don't know what's in the chief justice's mind but i do know we faced this challenge before. if you study history, you know the civil rights protesters always took the constitution more seriously than many judges did at the time. martin luther king began with the ambitious premise that the bill of rights actually meant what it said. >> we have waited for well now

345 years for our basic constitutional and god-given rights. >> he was thinking like a strict constructionist and believed that equal actually meant equal long before the legal establishment thought that was possible. and by outdreaming and outworking the immoral cynicism of the establishment at the time, he ultimately moved our public and legal consciousness closer to that true equality. so no one knows what will happen if congress acts but we do know that will movements which take the constitution seriously can push the courts to do so as well. that does it for the cycle today. martin, it's all yours. >> i couldn't agree more and you will be joining us on our broadcast to discuss this further. thank you for that. good afternoon, it's wednesday, july 17th. and is it time to take a stand against stand your ground? ♪

>> how is a young black man, i should interact with the police. >> when george confronted him he could have walked away and gone home. >> this is a father son tradition i hoped would not need to be handed down. >> trayvon got mad and attacked him. >> some of our frailties came out in the courtroom on tv. >> ridiculous questions. back and forth, back and forth. >> when someone speaks to you in english, do you believe that you have nel difficulty understanding it? >> i kept my ground. i stayed strong. >> it's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense. >> we will pass powerful anti-racial profiling ordinances. >> we must stand our ground. ♪ >> we begin with the widening impact of the george zimmerman